BERLIN, Conn. — A Connecticut family is convinced that the mysterious man accused of kidnapping his daughter in Boston and wanted for questioning in the 1985 disappearance of a California couple was a German student who lived with the family decades ago.
Immigration officials confirmed Thursday that they have joined the investigation into the background of Clark Rockefeller, who is jailed in Boston on charges that he snatched his 7-year-old daughter, Reigh, last month in an elaborately planned kidnapping.
Steve Savio, 39, of Berlin, Conn., said Thursday that he is “100 percent certain” Rockefeller is the same person who boarded with his family in 1980 under the name Christian Gerhart Reiter at age 17. His mother and brother agree.
Savio said Greenwich police interviewed his family in 1988 about a possible connection between Reiter and the disappearance of Jonathan and Linda Sohus of San Marino, Calif. The FBI and German authorities interviewed them this week about Reiter and Rockefeller, he said.
Police have said Rockefeller, 48, snatched his daughter from a Boston street July 27. The girl was found in good condition in Baltimore and has been reunited with her mother.
Authorities have said they have no record of Rockefeller before 1993, and he claims he has no memory of his life before then.
Savio said his family met Reiter after answering a newspaper ad from a visiting German teen looking for a place to live. He said he last saw Reiter in 1981 but that the man kept in contact with his mother.
